In high school, English language teachers always scored my language composition exam high, and pinned up my stories on the classroom notice boards so other students would borrow a leaf, figuratively speaking of course. The teachers felt my compositions were a good guide on how to write a good story, and hence pass your exam. I felt really good about that, no doubt.

When I first started blogging, I got some compliments, mostly about my very first posts. “I hope to start seeing some articles from you in one of these newspapers,” said a long time Facebook acquaintance. “You write well.”

And I hoped so, too. That had been the plan to start with: to start writing for one of the dailies. That someone I hadn’t shared it with should think as I did felt like validation.

This would do well on the back of a paperback, right? Uum, if I said I write best by the bedside.

Before my very first blog post I had had an inactive blog for some very long time, then I read some published articles that made me feel, ‘really, even I can do better. A lot better.’ Newspaper articles in the lifestyle section, especially, read under cooked. And that was the final jolt. I would stop playing around, I told myself. I know I can write. I would write. With some practice, I’d get better and better.

So I started blogging. At first with focus, regularity and discipline, then later with not as much focus, and more for leisure and with less purpose. That must have been how I lost it, or started to lose it, whatever creative art I may have had. What I wrote did not sound as good as I wanted. I used to be able to produce a good fictional story out of thin air, under the pressure and time span of an exam room. If high-school me could do that, and impress her examiners, surely now-me should be able do to much much better.

Maybe I got performance anxiety. I mean there are some really good writers here at WordPress. Reading them might make an under-developed writer feel her inadequacies.